Gen Z cashing in on a job baby boomers ditched: accounting

Call them the number-crunching comeback kids.

While baby boomers are clocking out of the accounting profession in droves — with 340,000 ditching the gig in just five years — Gen Z is jumping into the spreadsheet saddle, giving the so-called “boring” career a serious glow-up.

Faced with a major talent shortage, the field is getting an unlikely image makeover, thanks to savvy young students who see balance sheets not as tedious but as tickets to six-figure careers and real-world impact.

“Accounting is the science of the business world,” Alana Kelley, a third-year accounting and biohealth science major at Oregon State University (OSU), recently told Fortune. 

Kelley isn’t just crunching numbers in the classroom — she’s helping everyday Americans get money back in their pockets through the IRS’s long-running Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. 

She filed returns for a goat farmer with no internet access and a young woman supporting her sister — and helped them land refunds worth as much as $6,000.

Across the country, Gen Z is stepping up to fill the accounting void left behind by retiring boomers and burned-out millennials.

Some 75% of accountants still in the game, the publication reported, are expected to retire within the next decade.

And while the job’s reputation has long been considered, well, dull — it ranked No. 2 in one study of most “boring” occupations — students like Kelley are rewriting the narrative.

Her classmate, Tristan Klascius, also a third-year accounting major, helped a woman finally access her much-needed Social Security payments — a feat that once seemed out of reach.

These students are part of a growing Gen Z wave viewing accounting as more than just cubicles and calculators.

It’s a way to change lives — and secure high-paying jobs right out of college.

“We throw the students into the water, essentially, and let them swim, and then students actually live up to the challenge,” Rafael Efrat, director of the VITA program at California State University, Northridge, also said to the outlet. 

“While accounting may have a certain image in the background among young people of being not as intriguing and exciting, once they actually engage in the practice and see how it plays out in a real world, it changes people’s mind and views,” he added.

And there’s big money involved.

Last year alone, more than 280 CSUN students helped over 9,000 low-income Americans claim nearly $11 million in tax refunds and $3.6 million in credits, saving them more than $2 million in tax-prep fees.

That hands-on experience is paying off fast: Nearly all OSU accounting grads — a whopping 98% — secure jobs after graduation, with some earning up to $200,000 as certified public accountants (CPAs), according to faculty.

Still, the path to replenishing the accountant pipeline won’t be easy. Since peaking in 2015, the number of accounting degrees awarded has steadily declined — and dipped by as much as 7% between 2021 and 2023.

Educators like OSU professor Logan Steele told Fortune that it’s time to ditch the outdated stereotypes.

Today’s accountants are more likely to use AI-powered tools than paper ledgers and are often involved in strategic decision-making.

With Gen Z placing more value on job stability than job flexibility, experts say the tide could be turning — and VITA’s success may be just the start.

As the IRS faces ongoing funding fights, the next generation of accountants isn’t just ready to do the work — they’re already diving in.